Assessment of the Flathead Catfish Population in a Lightly Exploited Fishery in Lake Wilson, Alabama

Population metrics and the fishery for flathead catfish Pylodictis olivaris were examined in Lake Wilson, an impoundment of the Tennessee River in Alabama. We described the recreational and commercial exploitation, angler size selectivity, and population demographics and used modeling to assess the impact of exploitation and minimum length limits on the abundance of memorable (860-mm) and trophy (1,020-mm) fish. A total of 1,113 flathead catfish were collected, and 646 of these fish (≥300 mm) were tagged and released to estimate exploitation. The length distribution indicated that there was a high proportion of larger fish in the population, the relative stock densities of preferred-, memorable-, and trophy-length fish being 21, 8, and 2%, respectively. Ages were estimated from otoliths (N = 198), and it was found that fish were slow growing (von Bertalanffy growth coefficient, 0.066) and long-lived (maximum age, 34 years) and expressed a high annual survival rate (83%) and low instantaneous natu...